President Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared to suggest in a new interview with Lara Trump on Fox News that the massive tariffs imposed by the administration, far from shrinking the economy, will actually grow it.
"Tariffs are delivering historic results for the American people," Bessent posted on X, accompanying a video of his interview. "Even the mainstream media is starting to admit it. I’ve said total tariff revenue could reach $300B this year, but it could be much higher. Every $300B adds 1% to GDP. With tariffs alone, growth could hit 5%."
Bessent's claims were swiftly smacked down by experts, who pointed out that money is not extra economic growth, but a tax being paid by Americans — something Bessent himself has admitted in his more candid moments.
"This is economic gibberish," wrote analyst John Harwood.
"Tariffs are mostly taxes on Americans. Trade deficit is getting worse," wrote conservative analyst Jonah Goldberg. "I guess those are historic results."
"Magnitude is about right, but the sign is wrong. The $300 billion in tariffs will reduce long run output by a little less than 1%," wrote Kyle Pomerleau, tax policy strategist for the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
"Collecting $300bn in tariffs does not 'add' 1% to GDP. It just transfers it from US consumers and businesses to the government while making goods more expensive, hurting exporters, and creating an exemptions process ripe for corruption," wrote Phil Gordon of the Brookings Institution. "And the worst thing is Bessent knows that."
"In this video, the Treasury secretary tells the president's daughter-in-law that the president's illegal taxes are magic taxes that make us richer," wrote Dominic Pino of the National Review. "And he's supposed to be one of the positive influences in the administration."
"You cannot grow GDP by collecting taxes," wrote North Carolina State University agricultural economist Jeffrey Dorfman. "GDP is the total value of everything we produce. Tariffs are not production. To the extent they raise the price of products, then we all have less money to spend on other products. If we are lucky, tariffs have a zero effect."
A federal appeals court last week invalidated Trump's ability to impose tariffs under emergency powers without Congress, but the ruling is on hold to give the president time to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Watch the video below or at the link here.